Dev Question: Collecting a 4* champion

Renaldoo

There are now 8 4*'s that are in cover packs, for a total of 24 covers. At 3 pvp's a week, assuming a perfect rotation and no more 4*'s are released, that's 2 months for 1 rotation. To collect the covers then, that's 5 full rotations minimum, or 10 months, assuming you can score 1000 points at will (not very likely).

I have a very deep 3* roster (14 max, many others close), and I would really like to collect Professor X. Do the devs really intend for it to take me a full year to collect Professor X? What is the intent here? I don't think that this is reasonable. I can pretty much guarantee you that many people at a similar state in the game to myself will probably give up before saying to themselves, "a year of my life is a reasonable investment in this game to collect this one character."

simonsez

Renaldoo wrote:

Do the devs really intend for it to take me a full year to collect Professor X? What is the intent here?

The intent is that we buy covers.

tanis3303

Renaldoo wrote:

There are now 8 4*'s that are in cover packs, for a total of 24 covers. At 3 pvp's a week, assuming a perfect rotation and no more 4*'s are released, that's 2 months for 1 rotation. To collect the covers then, that's 5 full rotations minimum, or 10 months, assuming you can score 1000 points at will (not very likely).

I have a very deep 3* roster (14 max, many others close), and I would really like to collect Professor X. Do the devs really intend for it to take me a full year to collect Professor X? What is the intent here? I don't think that this is reasonable. I can pretty much guarantee you that many people at a similar state in the game to myself will probably give up before saying to themselves, "a year of my life is a reasonable investment in this game to collect this one character."

I think the idea is for you to get a few covers that way, preferably one of each of his colors, try out the character and then buy the rest with HP. The problem with that is the ridiculous cost of 4* covers. $20 is an insane price for what is effectively 1/13th of a character, and that's not even considering the 430,000 ISO investment you'll need to make to level the character. 4* characters (and this is just my opinion mind you) are not worth the cost of entry. Keep building that 3* roster. If you don't have Cyclops, Luke Cage, Iron Fist, Blade, Kamala Kahn, etc etc, I'd suggest working on those before you worry about 4*s. Besides, after the xforce and Thor nerfs, Professor X is the 4* outlier now, so I wouldn't be in too big a hurry to level him anyway, it won't be too long before he's "oppressive" like xf/Thor and gets a whack from the nerf bat (again, just my opinion)

Unknown

simonsez wrote:

Renaldoo wrote:

Do the devs really intend for it to take me a full year to collect Professor X? What is the intent here?

The intent is that we buy covers.

Or buy those 42 token pack.

Renaldoo

Evanoel wrote:

simonsez wrote:

Renaldoo wrote:

Do the devs really intend for it to take me a full year to collect Professor X? What is the intent here?

The intent is that we buy covers.

Or buy those 42 token pack.

The most successful, and long lasting FTP games have shown time and time again, that people will gladly put money into a game they are enjoying. Being pushed into spending money is not fun, rather it's the opposite. I believe MPQ wants to stand the test of time, and with their current 4* acquisition model, I think long term players such as myself are going to drop like flies. I've put in more than $50 over the last year. I'd gladly pay more if I was having fun. But I will not give them money because they tell me I can't progress at a reasonable rate unless I pay.

TheWerebison

You notice how quickly 4* are coming out, though. It seems to be increasing almost exponentially, and I expect it to continue. I'm sure eventually there will be an easier way to add 4* covers into the mix.

Then they'll introduce the 5* characters...*almost joking*

Unknown

The OP's point is valid in my mind. My two PVP viable 4*'s: Xforce and 4hor were a mixture random token draws, 1 k progs, and bought covers -- mostly bought covers. (Then they were both nerfed forcing me to never put another penny into this game, though I love it, on principle, but putting that aside...)

I'm around day 260. At the same time I collected Invisible Woman covers from random token drops mostly, and have her at 3/3/5. The other 4*'s, only a few covers each.

I would imagine that you'd have to get quite lucky to build a 4* character without either significant monetary investment or extreme gameplay in the game in less than 9 months. The few people I've seen build a 4* while F2P in less time were insane PVE grinders, but they all burned out quickly and no longer play the game at all.

We all agree there should be a curve of some sort toward getting to 4*, but 9 months to one year plus to get a single 4* viable for a player seems like a curve so steep that many will just decide to ignore it altogether. It'd be nice at the very least if there were some mechanism where you could at least decide.. okay these are the 1 or 2 4*'s I really want to get and focus on getting them somehow more easily, than waiting for them to come up in rotation cycles. I'm on my third season waiting for that last 4hor yellow to come up in rotation.

Seriously, you have to laugh when you can build a family in real life faster than you can build a 4* roster in this game.

Unknown

camichan wrote:

We all agree there should be a curve of some sort toward getting to 4*, but 9 months to one year plus to get a single 4* viable for a player seems like a curve so steep that many will just decide to ignore it altogether. It'd be nice at the very least if there were some mechanism where you could at least decide.. okay these are the 1 or 2 4*'s I really want to get and focus on getting them somehow more easily, than waiting for them to come up in rotation cycles. I'm on my third season waiting for that last 4hor yellow to come up in rotation.

There is a mechanism for that. It's the 4* cover rotation for Progression rewards in PvP. It's more reliable than waiting for 3* cover rewards to pop back around, 3*s just have other means of earning them. Do I wish there were better ways to earn 4* covers? Of course, but it can be done. My 5.3.3 Star Lord can attest to that, and he came out what 3 months ago? I covered him faster than Nick Fury, who I'm going through all the Daily Rewards to get right now.

Perhaps if the 1000 point progression was just a 4* redemption token you could pick what cover you wanted, rather than any particular 4* cover. Or if they reran a PvE or two rewarding them. As it stands the only way to build a 4* quickly is to purchase covers, with the second fastest way being lucky token draws.

Unknown

Lerysh wrote:

There is a mechanism for that. It's the 4* cover rotation for Progression rewards in PvP.

When I said I'm on my third season waiting for 4hor yellow to come up in the rotation, I didn't mean waiting for her as the alliance season award, I meant waiting for her cover as the 1k prog award in PVP.

Even earning the needed 4* covers through the 1k prog award system is painfully slow.

Yeah, you do have a better chance of building a Starlord right around the time of his release since he'll come up in the rotation more often for a certain period, but after the spotlight has changed to the next set of 4*'s, the rotation he'll see slows down quite a bit. Add to that that the number of 4* chars are increasing dramatically and adding into the rotation and you slow down the rotation for the character you want even more. But yeah, I wish there were a better way you could at least focus on collecting one of two of them faster than essentially slowly collecting them all little by little as the seasons pass.

By this standard 3* have way more utility and return on investment. After 280 days I have over a dozen PVP viable top tier 3*, and only 2 viable 4* (bought with cash mostly, then nerfed).

dkffiv

I just finished my Elektra covers a few weeks ago. She came out around Thanksgiving? Took 5 months. That's with every 1000 progression reward, coming in first + top 50 alliance for her release plus first place every time she's been offered as PvE 1st (and whenever she was given out as a season reward). Same story for Starlord (5/2/4), Professor X (2/5/1) and Kingpin (3/2/1).

When 4* first came out they had like double or triple the drop rate of 3*. Chances of getting a 4* were lower than a 3* but the individual odds of getting Xforce was higher than Patch (something around 2% chance?). Now its a .3% from tokens and they are very difficult to get from events.

I guess it doesn't matter since they suck but they've ramped up the rate at which they're releasing them and are increasing the difficulty of getting them, which doesn't make sense. Is it that hard to drop the 2* chance from tokens and increase the 4* rates to be individually higher than 3* (maybe around 1.5% chance)? If you afraid the booby prize isn't being hit enough vault a 4* or two every season and give players a 1-2% chance per pull.

acescracked

simonsez wrote:

Renaldoo wrote:

Do the devs really intend for it to take me a full year to collect Professor X? What is the intent here?

The intent is that we buy covers.

Or buy packs and tokens. Yes it's very hard to get 4*s. It's the biggest carrot in the game. They want to make money, that's their right. It's up to you (OP) how you want to go about getting the big carrot. Should you decide they make it too hard to get, well that's one of the choices you can make.

The theme of this thread; difficulty in getting 4*s has come up frequently lately. I personally don't understand the forum begging to the developers about it. The 4* is kind of a trophy anyway. The 4* isn't that much better than 3*s are they? Especially with xforce Nerf a coming.

Phaserhawk

I think it's a matter of time before 4*'s become PvE progression rewards, adjust points and let it fly.

As 4* come out, they will slowly supplant 3*'s, not entirely, but mostly. At that point the 3*'s become less vaulable and probably move to what 2* territory was before they made them random awards for winning a PvP match. Yes, 5*'s will come, it's how these games progress, is that a bad thing?

This games been out almost a year and a half and being day 525 I can tell you while the game is vastly different, I find it more fun, I mean we couldn't even respec for the first 6 months. This game has proven itself to be solid so far, which means we can expect a possible 5 year model plan, when you look at games like League of Legends, Simpsons Tapped Out or Clash of Clans, it's possible to have a very succesful and long term life of a mobile or F2P game, but you have to keep delivering new content to make people want to come back. Demurige and D3 are doing great for characters, they do need some content updates and it sounds like that is coming.

Malcrof

acescracked wrote:

simonsez wrote:

Renaldoo wrote:

Do the devs really intend for it to take me a full year to collect Professor X? What is the intent here?

The intent is that we buy covers.

Or buy packs and tokens. Yes it's very hard to get 4*s. It's the biggest carrot in the game. They want to make money, that's their right. It's up to you (OP) how you want to go about getting the big carrot. Should you decide they make it too hard to get, well that's one of the choices you can make.

The theme of this thread; difficulty in getting 4*s has come up frequently lately. I personally don't understand the forum begging to the developers about it. The 4* is kind of a trophy anyway. The 4* isn't that much better than 3*s are they? Especially with xforce Nerf a coming.

I got 2 40 packs, in total, 0 4 stars, 5 mystique covers, and only a few misc other 3 stars.. support said this is normal.

MarvelMan

Malcrof wrote:

I got 2 40 packs, in total, 0 4 stars, 5 mystique covers, and only a few misc other 3 stars.. support said this is normal.

Sounds about right. Even if the odds suggest its not, it seems that outcome is typical. This is why it is general knowledge that packs are like tossing money into a wishing well. Sorry it didnt turn out better!

Unknown

40 packs have the same rate than 10 packs, dont expect miracles, investing hp on tokens is a waste
They could improve the odds, but that wouldnt benefit them right? They win more by pulling those moves on some players than making the rest happy, sad true

I agree with OP, if they are going to introduce so many 4* at least make them more achievable

I will never understand that, if getting all covers for a 4* (111) we more easier more people would pay to complete them, but they dont realize that

Unknown

Is Dino on packs? Because he isnt in the rotations for PvP prizes.

GuntherBlobel

TheWerebison wrote:

Then they'll introduce the 5* characters...*almost joking*

I know you are mostly kidding, but I don't believe there could ever exist a 5* tier. rank is not about power, its about rarity. The entire 5* tier would have an insanely low drop rate of around 0.1% or less, which would be compounded with each new character. When you already have this many hard-core players questioning whether they will ever cover max the already existing 4* characters, you know that the Devs have achieved their goal of making MPQ an endless game for virtually every player.

Even now, there are serious problems with 4* rarity. Consider that 4* characters are now being created at a rate far faster than even the most hard-core players can collect (without cover purchases). At what point do 4* characters need to be rotated out to counter act the dilution effect? If, or more likely when they do, the Devs will have to rotate them out for like 6 months have to create a positive effect for players.

4* characters will give the 1 year+ crowd something to strive for, but I don't think the 4* game is ever going to be where MPQ shines.

Unknown

GuntherBlobel wrote:

I know you are mostly kidding, but I don't believe there could ever exist a 5* tier.

Never say never, these past months they introduced more nerfs than characters (even with 3 back to back pve lol)
Even buffed 90% of the characters just because they dont want to be seen as screwing another chunk of characters
Their stupidity knows no bounds, everything is possible

And, if Ultron is some kind of group boss that needs to be defeated by a whole Alliance, couldnt he(it?) be a 5*?

GuntherBlobel

Agent Alex wrote:

Their stupidity knows no bounds, everything is possible...
And, if Ultron is some kind of group boss that needs to be defeated by a whole Alliance, couldnt he(it?) be a 5*?

Well, that's certainly possible. I can't imagine that would be a 5* collectable though. What I'm trying to say is that a 5* progression would be slower than the lifespan of MPQ itself.

And I think the Devs are a lot smarter than you openly give them credit. It's fun, I guess, to call them stupid. But if you really believe that, why are you "investing" in such incompetence?

tanis3303

The only true 5* Character:

Unknown

The world is a nice place full of different opinions, I'm certainly not investing in the same way anymore
I think it could be a 5* not playable, and that maybe you can get the less threatening 4* version
Just trying to imagine a new category since he wont be the regular character if its a group Boss